Future of Division III

[Pat Coleman]

I don't think particular piece is. That's been discussed for a long time. We'll see if it passes a vote of the full D-III membership.

Been discussed for a *real* long time. Similar proposal was voted down about a decade ago by a 55-45 margin as well.

I'm not in favor of anything that applies a blanket solution to (most) every sport. If we think there are some sports where the number of contests is excessive, let's focus our efforts there.

[sbparent]

Have one daughter that played D3 softball and one still playing.  Coach tells them before registering for spring classes what days they will miss.  Its very few days.  I am sure you can take an athletes days missed for sports and it is much less than the normal student skips. Maybe we are an isolated case.  Not sure how a 10% reduction in games really helps that much.  Seems a lot of northern schools go south during their spring break and play 10 -12 games. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Have one daughter that played D3 softball and one still playing.  Coach tells them before registering for spring classes what days they will miss.  Its very few days.  I am sure you can take an athletes days missed for sports and it is much less than the normal student skips. Maybe we are an isolated case.  Not sure how a 10% reduction in games really helps that much.  Seems a lot of northern schools go south during their spring break and play 10 -12 games.

same thing for Baseball. Northern teams go South or west during Spring break. In the Mid-East region in Baseball there are plenty of teams close enough that when playing a game during the week, that they are not missing much school for an away game and possibly not any for a week day home game. I think out west, considering that they start earlier, can get the  current number of games in during the weekends. Dropping baseball 3 or 4 baseball games from the schedule will just spread the games played in the west even farther apart. I guess the teams out west could opt to start a week later.

[gobash83]

Have one daughter that played D3 softball and one still playing.  Coach tells them before registering for spring classes what days they will miss.  Its very few days.  I am sure you can take an athletes days missed for sports and it is much less than the normal student skips. Maybe we are an isolated case.  Not sure how a 10% reduction in games really helps that much.  Seems a lot of northern schools go south during their spring break and play 10 -12 games.

I am not sure you are an isolated case.  My daughter plays D3 soccer and last season missed 1 class day (for the first round of the conference tournament).  Her games were one during the week (with an opponent within 1-2 hour drive) and a weekend.  I realize that being in the Midwest may make it easier for schools to find opponents within close proximity but I suspect this is driven more by finances than missed class days. 

[sbparent]

gobash83 You are probably correct that it is more about finances but the article presented it as more of a student out of class time.  With this and the fact that NCAA is looking at ways to cut back on D3 champions I am glad my daughter only has 2 years left.  This season is safe for the schedule cut backs this year and hopefully it will not go into effect until the 2017 season.

[Ralph Turner]

Also from the article...

Also, FTA...

The council sponsored convention legislation that would add women's sand volleyball as a sport in Division III and establish a National Collegiate Championship for the sport. The first sand volleyball championship would tentatively be scheduled to be held in 2016. The council noted that National Collegiate Championships do not have an impact on Division III's budget.

Curious.

I am not sure what this does to Title IX dynamics.  A "duplicate" sport, adding very few "unique" student-athletes to the equation...

I will appreciate thoughts.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Also from the article...

Also, FTA...

The council sponsored convention legislation that would add women's sand volleyball as a sport in Division III and establish a National Collegiate Championship for the sport. The first sand volleyball championship would tentatively be scheduled to be held in 2016. The council noted that National Collegiate Championships do not have an impact on Division III's budget.

Curious.

I am not sure what this does to Title IX dynamics.  A "duplicate" sport, adding very few "unique" student-athletes to the equation...

I will appreciate thoughts.

I wonder what the specifics of this are.  Typically a "team" is just two players.  I wonder if they'll do a tennis-like format with several pairs of players facing off?

[ADL70]

Here you go:

http://www.collegesand.org/

Column on left describes two formats.

[Just Bill]

Think of Sand Volleyball as dual match tennis. Five pairs of athletes ranked 1-5 make up a team. They play another team and whoever wins more of the five matches wins the dual.

At the Division I level, they have surprisingly found less crossover from traditional 6-person volleyball to sand volleyball than expected. Most of the D-I teams only have a few that play both, and typically the best players focus on only one. That might not hold true if Division III schools begin adding it, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Think of Sand Volleyball as dual match tennis. Five pairs of athletes ranked 1-5 make up a team. They play another team and whoever wins more of the five matches wins the dual.

At the Division I level, they have surprisingly found less crossover from traditional 6-person volleyball to sand volleyball than expected. Most of the D-I teams only have a few that play both, and typically the best players focus on only one. That might not hold true if Division III schools begin adding it, but we'll have to wait and see.

If there was a lot of cross over between Sand and traditional VB at the D3 level, would that not fly in the face or be contradictory of the other items being reviewed such as number of games played. Since these two sports would take up two separate seasons? If a student played both that would be more time away from academics and the college life experience.

[ADL70]

Compare to distance runners who compete in XC and both indoor and outdoor T&F.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Compare to distance runners who compete in XC and both indoor and outdoor T&F.

Good point +1

[sunny]

Compare to distance runners who compete in XC and both indoor and outdoor T&F.

Which is, frankly, a huge loophole. Considering at this level, you'd be hard-pressed to find a school with different indoor and outdoor track coaches. That's pretty much WHY sand volleyball can happen. I just can't wait until "Outdoor 3x3 Basketball" is pushed for. Don't laugh ...

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Compare to distance runners who compete in XC and both indoor and outdoor T&F.

Which is, frankly, a huge loophole. Considering at this level, you'd be hard-pressed to find a school with different indoor and outdoor track coaches. That's pretty much WHY sand volleyball can happen. I just can't wait until "Outdoor 3x3 Basketball" is pushed for. Don't laugh ...

If you've already got the coaching staff and insurance for football, why not add rugby 7s, especially since it's an olympic sport now?

[jknezek]

Compare to distance runners who compete in XC and both indoor and outdoor T&F.

Which is, frankly, a huge loophole. Considering at this level, you'd be hard-pressed to find a school with different indoor and outdoor track coaches. That's pretty much WHY sand volleyball can happen. I just can't wait until "Outdoor 3x3 Basketball" is pushed for. Don't laugh ...

If you've already got the coaching staff and insurance for football, why not add rugby 7s, especially since it's an olympic sport now?

Coaching for football and rugby are completely different. The strength coach might come in handy, but that's about it. Rugby 7s would have more in common with soccer than football in a lot of ways, although that isn't real close either. I love rugby 7s and played union at the club level in college, but that's a very big stretch.  I'm assuming you mean add the women's sport as well, not the men's. Adding the men's would most likely require adding the women's or some other women's sport, not necessarily the reverse.